Following on from its groundbreaking shopping walls in South Korean, Tesco introduced a new interactive virtual store at the UK’s Gatwick Airport this month. The trial ran for two weeks.
Supermarket giant Tesco has trialled the UK’s first interactive virtual grocery store in the departure lounge at Gatwick Airport. The interactive screens showed shelves containing 80 products such as bread and milk. Shoppers used their smartphones to scan a product’s barcode; the goods were then delivered on the traveller’s return date.
The new technology proved popular with travellers at Gatwick’s North Terminal. The service is “a taste of the future”, said Mandy Minichiello of Tesco.com. She added that the retailer was running the trial in order to generate customer feedback. Stressing that they are keen to make customers lives as easy as possible, she explained that “increasingly, they want to shop on the go”. Shopper also have the ability to carry out competitor price monitoring on their smartphones while on the move. Retail price intelligence is growing in popularity as shoppers become more aware of the benefits of online shopping.
Tesco carried out a similar trial in South Korea last year with commuters pointing their mobile phones at billboards in train stations. The trial was so successful that the service was rolled out to a number of locations. “We got a lot of interest in our Korean sites and it went viral, so we wanted to see if customers would use this, with a view to launching at more airports”, said Ken Towle, Tesco’s Internet retailing director.
According to IMRG, nearly a quarter of UK consumers have used their smartphone to access retail websites while out shopping.
© Profitero 2012
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